Hart Minor and Smith were behind-hand with their sums. It was Hart
Minor’s first term: Smith had already been one term at school. They were
in the fourth division at St. James’s. A certain number of sums in short
division had to be finished. Hart Minor and Smith got up early to finish
these sums before breakfast, which was at half-past seven. Hart Minor
divided slowly, and Smith reckoned quickly. Smith finished his sums with
ease. When half-past seven struck, Hart Minor had finished four of them
and there was still a fifth left: 3888 had to be divided by 36; short
division had to be employed. Hart Minor was busily trying to divide 3888
by 4 and by 9; he had got as far as saying, “Four’s into 38 will go six
times and two over; four’s into twenty-eight go seven times; four’s
into eight go twice.” He was beginning to divide 672 by 9, an impossible
task, when the breakfast bell rang, and Smith said to him: “Come on!”
“I can’t,” said Hart Minor, “I haven’t finished my sum.”
Smith glanced at his page and said: “Oh that’s all right, don’t you see?
The answer’s 108.”
Hart Minor wrote down 108 and put a large R next to the sum, which meant
Right.
The boys went in to breakfast. After breakfast they returned to
the fourth division schoolroom, where they were to be instructed in
arithmetic for an hour by Mr. Whitehead. Mr. Whitehead called for
the sums. He glanced through Smith’s and found them correct, and then
through Hart Minor’s. His attention was arrested by the last division.
“What’s this?” he demanded. “Four’s into thirty-eight don’t go six
times. You’ve got the right answer and the wrong working. What does this
mean?” And Mr. Whitehead bit his knuckles savagely. “Somebody,” he said,
“has been helping you.”
Hart Minor owned that he had received help from Smith. Mr. Whitehead
shook him violently, and said, “Do you know what this means?”
Hart Minor had no sort of idea as to the inner significance of his act,
except that he had finished his sums.
“It means,” said Mr. Whitehead, “that you’re a cheat and a thief: you’ve
been stealing marks. For the present you can stand on the stool of
penitence and I’ll see what is to be done with you later.”
The stool of penitence was a high, three-cornered stool, very narrow at
the top. When boys in this division misbehaved themselves they had to
stand on it during the rest of the lesson in the middle of the room.
Hart Minor fetched the stool of penitence and climbed up on it. It
wobbled horribly.
After the lesson, which was punctuated throughout by Mr. Whitehead with
bitter comments on the enormity of theft, the boys went to chapel. Smith
and Hart were in the choir: they wore white surplices which were put on
in the vestry. Hart Minor, who knew that he was in for a terrific row of
some kind, thought he observed something unusual in the conduct of the
masters who were assembled in the vestry. They were all tittering. Mr.
Whitehead seemed to be convulsed with uncontrollable laughter. The choir
walked up the aisle. Hart Minor noticed that all the boys in the school,
and the servants who sat behind them, and the master’s wife who sat in
front, and the organist who played the harmonium, were all staring at
him with unwonted interest; the boys were nudging each other: he could
not understand why.
When the service, which lasted twenty minutes, was over, and the boys
came out of chapel, Hart Minor was the centre of a jeering crowd of
boys. He asked Smith what the cause of this was, and Smith confessed to
him that before going into chapel Mr. Whitehead had pinned on his back a
large sheet of paper with “Cheat” written on it, and had only removed
it just before the procession walked up the aisle, hence the interest
aroused. But, contrary to his expectation, nothing further occurred;
none of the masters alluded to his misdemeanour, and Hart Minor almost
thought that the incident was closed--almost, and yet really not at all;
he tried to delude himself into thinking the affair would blow over, but
all the while at the bottom of his heart sat a horrible misgiving.
Every Monday there was in this school what was called “reading over.”
The boys all assembled in the library and the Head Master, standing in
front of his tall desk, summoned each division before him in turn. The
marks of the week were read out and the boys took places, moving either
up or down according to their marks; so that a boy who was at the top
of his division one week might find himself at the bottom the next week,
and vice versa.
On the Sunday after the incident recorded, the boys of the fourth
division were sitting in their schoolroom before luncheon, in order to
write their weekly letter home. This was the rule of the school. Mr.
Whitehead sat at his desk and talked in a friendly manner to the boys.
He was writing his weekly report in the large black report book that was
used for reading over. Mr. Whitehead was talking in a chaffing way as to
who was his favourite boy.
“You can tell your people,” he said to Hart Minor, “that my favourite
is old Polly.” Polly was Hart Minor’s nickname, which was given to him
owing to his resemblance to a parrot. Hart Minor was much pleased at
this friendly attitude, and began to think that the unpleasant incident
of the week had been really forgotten and that the misgiving which
haunted him night and day was a foolish delusion.
“We shall soon be writing the half-term reports,” said Mr. Whitehead.
“You’ve all been doing well, especially old Polly: you can put that in
your letter,” he said to Hart Minor. “I’m very much pleased with you,”
and he chuckled.
On Monday morning at eleven o’clock was reading over. When the fourth
division were called up, the Head Master paused, looked down the page,
then at the boys, then at the book once more; then he frowned. There was
a second pause, then he read out in icy tones:--
“I’m sorry to say that Smith and Hart Minor have been found guilty of
gross dishonesty; they combined--in fact they entered into a conspiracy,
to cheat, to steal marks and obtain by unfair means, a higher place and
an advantage which was not due to them.”
The Head Master paused. “Hart Minor and Smith,” he continued, “go to the
bottom of the division. Smith,” he added, “I’m astounded at you. Your
conduct in this affair is inexplicable. If it were not for your previous
record and good conduct, I should have you severely flogged; and if Hart
Minor were not a new boy, I should treat him in the same way and have
him turned out of the choir. (The choir had special privileges.) As it
is, you shall lose, each of you, 200 marks, and I shall report the
whole matter in detail to your parents in your half-term report, and if
anything of the sort ever occurs again, you shall be severely punished.
You have been guilty of an act for which, were you not schoolboys, but
grown up, you would be put in prison. It is this kind of thing that
leads people to penal servitude.”
After the reading over was finished and the lessons that followed
immediately on it, and the boys went out to wash their hands for
luncheon, the boys of the second division crowded round Hart Minor
and asked him how he could have perpetrated such a horrible and daring
crime. The matter, however, was soon forgotten by the boys, but Hart
Minor had not heard the last of it. On the following Sunday in chapel,
at the evening service, the Head Master preached a sermon. He chose as
his text “Thou shalt not steal!” The eyes of the whole school were fixed
on Smith and Hart Minor. The Head Master pointed out in his discourse
that one might think at first sight that boys at a school might not have
the opportunity to violate the tremendous Commandments; but, he said,
this was not so. The Commandments were as much a living actuality in
school life as they were in the larger world. Coming events cast their
shadows before them; the child was the father of the man; what a boy
was at school, such would he be in after life. Theft, the boys perhaps
thought, was not a sin which immediately concerned them. But there were
things which were morally the same if not worse than the actual theft
of material and tangible objects--dishonesty in the matter of marks, for
instance, and cheating in order to gain an undue advantage over one’s
fellow-schoolboys. A boy who was guilty of such an act at school would
probably end by being a criminal when he went out into the larger world.
The seeds of depravity were already sown; the tree whose early shoots
were thus blemished would probably be found to be rotten when it grew
up; and for such trees and for such noxious growths there could only be
one fate--to be cut down and cast into the unquenchable fire!
In Hart Minor’s half-term report, which was sent home to his parents,
it was stated that he had been found guilty of the meanest and grossest
dishonesty, and that should it occur again he would be first punished
and finally expelled.